Patron and Guest Poets
For the 2010 WA Spring Poetry Festival and National Poetry Week

2010 WA Poets Inc Patron

 

Lucy Dougan has a PhD from the University of Western Australia.  Her first book, Memory Shell (Five Islands Press, 1998) won the Mary Gilmore Award in 2000. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, both here and overseas.  She has worked in arts administration, as a tertiary teacher of creative writing, literature and film; and has run workshops for teachers exploring ways of engaging young people in poetry. In 2006 she had poems commissioned for the Southern Forest Sculpture Walk at Northcliffe in WA.  She is a former poetry editor of HEAT magazine. Her latest book, White Clay, was published by Giramondo in 2008.  In 2006 the manuscript of White Clay won the Arts ACT Alec Bolton Award for an unpublished manuscript by an Australian poet. She currently works in an administration and research position at UWA.

 

INTERNATIONAL GUEST POET

 

Joanna Preston was born in Sydney and spent her childhood in outback New South Wales. In 1994, she migrated to Christchurch, and has since been active in the Canterbury literary scene. From 2003 to 2006, she lived in the United Kingdom, adding an MPhil. in Creative Writing from the University of Glamorgan to her BA in Theatre and Film Studies. Her award-winning poems have been widely published in New Zealand and internationally, including in the prestigious 2007 Carcanet anthology New Poetries IV and Best Australian Poems 2005. In 2008, Preston was the inaugural winner of The Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry, and in 2010 has been shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore Prize.

INTERSTATE GUEST POETS

 

Meg Mooney has been living in central Australia for 22 years, living and/or working in remote Aboriginal communities for most of that time, and her work generally focuses on landscapes and relationships there. Meg first got to love the Australian deserts working as a geologist. After a spell as a Literature Production Supervisor at Papunya School and having a son, she has edged her way back towards the natural sciences. For a few years she has been working on landcare with remote Aboriginal communities. Currently, she is helping to develop a two-way environmental education program for children in remote community schools. Meg has been writing poetry for 20 years - ever since she enrolled in a poetry workshop at a tertiary institution. Meg Mooney's poems often have a strong narrative and attention to detail. Ptilotus Press, Alice Springs, published For the dry country: writing and drawings from the Centre, by Meg and artist Sally Mumford, in 2005. This book, with Meg’s poems and nature pieces and Sally’s outstanding artwork (not illustrations) has sold nearly 1,000 copies. Meg’s poem ‘Birdwatching during the Intervention’ featured in Best Australian Poems 2009, Black Inc; and Meg has had poems published in various Australian journals and anthologies. She has twice won the poetry section of the NT Literary Awards and been a finalist 3 other times and has twice been selected, in 2004 and 2009, for regional writer master classes at Varuna, The Writers’ House, Katoomba, NSW. Meg is a member of Ptilotus Press, a small local press, which has published 3 high quality anthologies of poetry and prose. The latest, Fishtails in the Dust: writing from the Centre, was published in 2009.

 

Chris Mansell is an Australian poet. She was active in Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s as an editor and poet and since the 1980s has lived on the NSW south coast (Australia) where she continues to write, perform, and edit. In 1978 she founded Compass poetry & prose a little magazine, which published many of the young Australian poets of the time. She closed the magazine in 1987 and soon after, became a member of the collective, which founded Five Islands Press. Like many poets of her generation, she makes her living by performing her work, publishing and teaching writing at various institutions. Although primarily a poet she has also written a number of plays including Some Sunny Day. Always interested in experimentation with form, she now also works in digital media. She founded PressPress, a small independent poetry publisher in 2002.

Chris Mansell's collection of poems, Shining like a Jinx, won the Amelia Chapbook Award, USA. In 1993 she won the Queensland Premier's Award for poetry for ‘Yarmul’, which later appeared, in her Mortifications & Lies; Redshift/Blueshift was short listed for the NSW Premier’s Award; she has also won a number of prizes for her short fiction. Her collection of poems Day Easy Sunlight Fine was short-listed for the Banjo Awards and then she was writer in Residence with Flightpaths (Next Wave). Since then she has been a mentor to poets within Australia under the aegis of the Australian Society of Authors, the Northern Territory Writers Centre and the South Coast Writers Centre. 

She remains preoccupied with the physical//intellectual landscapes and worked with Tommaso Durante editing the poems for his artist’s book, Terra Australis. She was co-director of the Shoalhaven Poetry Festival in 2002 & 2003 and 2005.

 

LOCAL POETS

 

Karla Hart was born on 18 May 1978 in Perth Western Australia and completed the Aboriginal Theatre course 2005 at WA Academy of Performing Arts (units included acting, singing, dancing, writing). She studied three years in Contemporary Performance at the WA Academy of Performing Arts, ECU. She has written, performed and co directed in many plays and was trained in traditional dance by elders in late 2004 and now manages and performs with "Kwarbah Djookian" a women's traditional dance group.

Karla is a performance poet qualifying as a finalist in the 2009 Perth Poetry slam and a state finalist for the national Poetry Slam for the last two years. Karla is currently a broadcaster on Noongar Radio and is currently working with Community Arts Network WA in Kellerberrin collaborating with artist Fleur Hockey to create a performance piece for the Kellerberrin show. She was named NAIDOC artist of the Year 2009.

 

Maitland Schnaars is a graduate from the Certificate III Theatre and Certificate IV Acting for Camera from WAAPA (Western Australian Academy Performing Arts) 2003 & 2004 respectively. In 2003 he won the Western Mining Corp award for Best Indigenous Male Artist. From 2004-2006 he studied Contemporary Performance at Edith Cowan University. He has created three short hybrid performance pieces, “Straight Jacket” 2004, “U.D” 2005 and “Tears of Blood” 2006, combining poetry, multi-media and visual art, movement and sound. In 2005 he co-founded the international theatre company Corazon de Vaca. In 2007 Corazon de Vaca were the first theatre company in Perth to stage a play by the English playwright Sarah Kane “Phaedra’s Love”. In 2008 Corazon de Vaca were commissioned to create a brand new work to be premiered at the World EXPO in Zaragoza, Spain. With regards to both pieces Maitland was a major contributor as performer, writer and artistic collaborator. Maitland continues to develop his skills as a writer, performer and creator by continuing to attend workshops both in Australia and Overseas.

 

Phil McNamara is a West Australian writer, artist, educator and curator. Since 1986 he has held over a dozen solo exhibitions. His work has been selected in several touring shows and is represented in the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Edith Cowan University Collections. Whilst at University he was awarded the W.A.C.A.E prize for Creative Writing and a prize in the inaugural Randolph Stowe Poetry Prize. In the mid 1980’s he was active in local poetry readings that extended into Performance pieces at PICA in the early 1990’s. He has written on the visual arts for a number of magazines and newspapers, written plays for school productions, and had several catalogues on W.A. Artists published. His most recent publication is his first book of poetry – To Bring All Circles Full (Just Ordinary Life To Treasure). Poetic influences include Rumi, Basho, The Metaphysical Poets, Wordsworth, Yeats, Imagist Poetry, Paul Reps, Gary Snyder and The Beat poets.  Intellectual influences include Neil Douglas-Klotz and Ken Wilbur, as well as Tom Gibbons who interested him in the whole Gnostic-Hermetic-Christian complex and the underlying Neoplatonism fabric of Western modernism. He has a deep interest in Zen. Married with two children he is currently the English Curriculum Consultant at Warnbro Community High School.

 

Julie Watts is married with 3 children and has had a life long love of poetry. She has been published in Fremantle Art's Review (1987), Weighing of the Heart (2007) an OOTA publication, online through Les Wicks (2008) and Indigo Journal (2010). She was Highly Recommended in Mazzuchellis Love Poetry Competition (1987)

 

Coral Carter Kalgoorlie born. Nomadic life has taken her far and wide including Marree, Great Sandy Desert, Southern Cross, Iron Knob and Ulaan Baatar. Now resides in Bayswater where she pursues poetry and occasionally catches a poem. Began performing her work at WA Spring Poetry Festival in 2005. Reads most weeks at Perth Poetry Club. Third place in the National Poetry Slam WA finals in 2009. Published online and in a couple of now defunct journals.

 

Deanne Leber is a Western Australian poet.  She has had her work published in various journals, newspapers and magazines, as well as online.  Deanne has an extensive performance history, having read her work at many literary events and poetry readings in Western Australia.  Deanne’s first collection of poetry, Book of Days, was shortlisted for The Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards 2006.  Deanne is currently completing her
Doctorate in Writing at Edith Cowan University.  The focus of her second collection and her
PhD work, are the constellations and the myths attached to them.

 

Sue Clennell has a Bachelor of Letters from Deakin Uni, majoring in Journalism. She is the co-author of "The Ink Drinkers" (Poetry & Prose) and "Iron Heart." (Poetry). Sue has had poetry published by major journals and anthologies in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. She has been runner up and commended in the $10,000 Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize, 2006 & 2007.

 

Maureen Sexton is a freelance writer, poet, haiku/haiga poet, editor, photographer, digital media artist, webmistress and event organiser. She has vast writer-in-the-community experience and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing. She was a co-founder of WA Poets Inc, the annual WA Spring Poetry Festival, Creative Connections Art and Poetry exhibitions, The Word is Out Poetry Journals, creatrix poetry journal, the Mari Warabiny haiku group and Walking on Water readings. Her poetry and haiku have been widely published internationally and nationally. She is currently: HaikuOz  (Haiku Association of Australia) WA regional representative, Poetry Coordinator of Creative Connections Art and Poetry Exhibitions, committee member of WA Poets Inc, on the editing team/selection panel of creatrix poetry journal (haiku) and on the poetry sub-committee of Peter Cowan Writers Centre. She is an ecofeminist and is concerned about the environment, climate change and social injustice.

 

Roland Leach is a poet, short story writer, teacher of Secondary English and Literature and editor of Brillig, a magazine for young writers.  He has won several major prizes for poetry including the South-West Literary Prize (three times), the Tom Collins Poetry Prize (twice), the Newcastle Poetry Prize, the Lancaster Litfest Poetry Prize (England); the National Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize.  His poems are published in numerous magazines, newspapers and journals including Southerly, Westerly, Imago, LINQ, Overland, Fremantle Arts Review.  His work is featured in Shorelines: Three Poets, Beneath the Reef, an anthology of three West Australian poets published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Sunline Press published a major collection of his poetry, drowning ophelia, in 2000

 

Shane McCauley is one of Australia's best-known “eminent” poets and poetry critics. He was born in England in 1954 and has lived in Australia since the age of 5. A graduate of the Universities of WA and Sydney he is currently a lecturer at Midland TAFE and Edith Cowan University. His poems and reviews have been widely published and is the author of five poetry books. In 2008 he won the Max Harris Poetry Award. He co-edited the anthology 'The Weighing of the Heart', published by SunLine Press in 2007. Shane has mentored many local writers with his poetry classes for the Out of the Asylum Writers Group at Fremantle Arts Centre. Apart from many poems and stories published in Australian and overseas journals, he has had three volumes of poetry published by the Fremantle Arts Centre Press: The Chinese Feast (1984), Deep-Sea Diver (1987) and The Butterfly Man (1991). His play The All-Nite Cafe was performed in Perth in 1978.

In 1993 he was the recipient of a Senior Writers' Fellowship from the Australia Council.

Gabrielle Everall is a Fremantle, Western Australia, author whose first book of poetry Dona Juanita and the love of boys was published in 2007. She is currently studying for a PhD in creative writing at the University of Western Australia. Gabrielle has been published in The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry, Going Down Swinging, Cordite, The Sleeper's Almanac, Shortfuse: A Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry, Herding Kites: A Celebration of Australian Writing and A Salt Reader etc. Her videopoem Vita Means Life was screened at See the Voice: Visible Verse 2009 in Vancouver. She has performed her poetry at the The Big Day Out, Putting On An Act, The National Young Writer's Festival, the Emerging Writer's Festival and Melbourne's Overload Festival etc, all in Australia.  You can hear her work at: http://voices.e-poets.net/EverallG/